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Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /home/pwsconsu/public_html/blog/plugins/code_highlight_plugin/_code_highlight.plugin.php on line 528The South East Asia SOA Weblog - Archives for: November 2010

PostgreSQL... could have a good future

I had an interesting meeting today with a partner that is focused on PostgreSQL. I have always liked Postgres as a database and found it fairly easy to administer as well as pretty good performance. Interestingly the partner I met was telling me that he has seen a spike in his business since Sun bit the dust.

With the fallout from Oracle’s acquisition of Sun and the ensuing suit with Google over Android etc. it is no surprise that many industry watchers are very concerned about the well being of MySQL and what the future holds. With MySQL the obvious market gorilla in open source database one would have to assume that there is a fairly large proportion of their install base looking actively at alternatives and trying to make their way out of Larry Land before it is too late.

Whilst Postgres is licensed under it’s own open source license, the license itself is very flexible and unrestricted (similar to MIT and BSD). Personally I have a major problem with the way that MySQL has twisted its dual licensing scheme under GPL (they are not alone) and I am sure that many others share the same opinion. I am also quite certain that this is not something Larry will fix out the goodness of his heart but I would like to be proven wrong here.

I personally believe that the strong copyleft provided by the GPL was pivotal to the success of Linux and offers the developers the peace of mind that their work would benefit the whole world and remain free. Rather than this honorable outcome, we are now at a dubious crossroads where greedy corporates (out to make a quick buck at any cost) employ legal teams to pervert and exploit these contributions. This is really a sad situation for contributors to be in.

Another unfortunate trend is the corporates that exploit the spirit of GPL and open source to add some marketing punch to their offering with schemes like the dual licensing approach that really do misrepresent the intent of open source and free software. To me that is a very negative situation that creates a legal quagmire for those seeking to genuinely leverage open source and adopt a value-based approach to solutions by acquiring genuinely valuable support subscriptions from honest open source companies and their partners. The way the free software foundation portrays this is “organizations that are seduced into using non-free software". I agree and I think it is unscrupulous.

No matter which licensing scheme an open source company offers, there are many issues and legal considerations to contemplate now. It just should not be that way!!! For example it is now recognized that even the hallowed GPL has some flaws. So I guess with all the industry turmoil around open source and the unbending will of the FSF (love them, hate them or think they are full of extremists), one can only really admire their pursuit of freedom. Considering this you have to wonder why PostgreSQL has not gone with GPL by now. Personally (after watching the industry for 30 years and seeing the sheer will of people like Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman first hand) I am confident that the FSF will continue to improve and strengthen the GPL. I think it is probably worthwhile for PostgreSQL to now consider making a move.

In summary the world sorely needs a truly free enterprise RDBMS whilst many RDBMS users are exploited by either being “lured into non-free software” or forced to pay incredibly high costs for one of the lowest business value components in IT… and really folks… it could be PostgreSQL. Let us pray.